WELCOME TO FRONTROWLUTHERAN.COM!
Here's the first post on the main blog on frontrowlutheran.com.

So...why the name frontrowlutheran.com? Well, the way I see it, there couldn't possibly be a better name to describe the expression "Living a life of paradox one day at a time"--an expression that is Holy Spirit-inspired and the interim mission statement for my life.

Paradoxes are amazing. They are kind of like oxymorons, like "jumbo shrimp" or "friendly fire," but they are so much more. As wikipedia.org says,

"A paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition. Typically, either the statements in question do not really imply the contradiction, the puzzling result is not really a contradiction, or the premises themselves are not all really true or cannot all be true together."

Martin Luther is known for using paradoxes in his theology. "We are simultaneously saint and sinner." "A Christian is the most free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, subject to every one."

As one of the ELCA social statements in progress says, Paradoxes are usually absent from a system of beliefs or a set of ethical principles. Most folks dont like paradoxes in their system of belief because most folks arent able to explain how in the world two things that appear to be so different from each other can work together to reveal any sort of truth. But Lutherans, who follow in the tradition of Martin Luther, strive to realize through intellectual maturity and a maturity of faith, that paradoxes are expressions of wisdom and signal a thought world in which wisdom is valued. As Lutherans, we come to learn that there is wisdom in the expression simultaneously saint and sinner. There is wisdom in both Law and Gospel. There is wisdom in valuing both faith and reason.

While on internship at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Madison, Nebraska, I developed a great respect for paradoxes. If you are observant, you'll see that paradoxes are all around us, and that they are filled with truth.

Front-Row Lutheran: it is a paradoxical statement. It defies common logic and intuition. And yet it is who I am and who I'm called to be.

I hope you make frontrowlutheran.com a frequent stop in your daily surfing of the Web.